ACCESSIBILITY - InDesign User Group

From InDesign to PDF
ACCESSIBILITY

In InDesign
• Always use style sheets (paragraph styles/character styles)
• Create interactive elements (page links, text anchors,
URL’s, footnotes, bibliography)
• Create bookmarks
• For books only – Create TOC from existing structure,
include bookmark feature
• Map styles to tags
• Set Metadata (Document Title, Subject, Creator, keywords)
• EXPORT to PDF – be sure to check optimization, tagging,
view PDF and include Bookmarks, hyperlink, and
interactive elements

Settings for Export Options

In Acrobat
• Maintain this order:
Check document properties (File → Properties – check
for metadata errors)
Set language (File → Properties → Advanced →
Language)
Set Tab Structure (Pages → Options → Page
Properties → Tab Order→ Document Structure)
Check Bookmarks (if necessary add bookmarks)
Check Reading Order (Set/Check Table properties in
this panel through Table editor for tables)
Check Tags (“walk” tags to appropriate location if tags
are not in order)
Save Document

Run Accessibility Checker
Correct any errors if necessary
Run Accessibility Checker
Reduce File Size
Check document properties (File → Properties –
check for metadata errors)
NOTE: There are some issues with tags in
documents exported from InDesign. These
“errors” have to be fixed manually

Issues and Solutions
• Drop Caps
• Lists/TOC
• Tables
The drop Cap is placed in its own container – this issue needs to be fixed in the content panel
in the PDF
InDesign will only export and map to certain tags; Lists, List Items, TOC, and TOC items
export as P tags. These items have to be tagged manually by adding parent tags [L/TOC], and
sub directing the LI/TOCI tags. LI and TOCI have to be assigned in the role map to the
appropriate tags/style names to avoid errors from the Accessibility checker.
InDesign exports all tables without headers. Headers need to be manually tagged in the
reading order panel through the Table editor feature. Complex tables also require data/header
association, through the Table editor feature.
• Hyphenation
• Links
InDesign will export optional hyphens as actual hyphens creating three separate containers
for the word (first syllables, hyphen, last syllables). Whenever possible, hyphenation should
be turned off in InDesign.
Links export outside the LINK and LINK OBJR tags. The link container needs to be “walked”
into the appropriate tag)
• Additional Span Tags
optional/non-visible characters (manual line break, tab, extra returns, etc) export from
InDesign and will appear in the tag structure as a separate SPAN tag.

Victoria Richards
victoria.richards@ssa.gov